AlaskaAV
08-27-2004, 01:52 PM
I have mentioned elsewhere about the support Wien gave the DEW line across western and northern Alaska and part of Canada as well as some White Alice sites. I was involved in some activity at the POW MAIN station through my work as assistant airport manager for the US Navy facility under management of the US Air Force at the Point Barrow Airport which served POW MAIN.
Following are links to a very well written history of that operation. They are very accurate and needless to say, worth reading for those that are interested in the Arctic of North America. Larry is a great researcher of facts and a great writer.
http://www.lswilson.ca/dewhist-a.htm
Although linked to Larry Wilson, the article from which this information comes from was written by Lynden T (Bucky) Harris and hosted by Larry.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lswilson.ca/powm-lp.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.lswilson.ca/powm.htm&h=321&w=573&sz=24&t
bnid=QGu46YRxigAJ:&tbnh=73&tbnw=130&start=2&prev=/images%3Fq%3DPOW%2BMain%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DU TF-8
(copy and paste the above link)
For my good friends from Canada, here is a link for the information across Canada as written by Larry Wilson also.
http://www.lswilson.ca/dewline.htm
What is interesting to me is that I knew all of those individuals listed in the group of officials at the official acceptance ceremony and worked with some of them. Many from Alaska will recognize some of the names.
Jim Dalton. The haul road to Prudhoe Bay from Fairbanks is named after him. He was one of the most noted engineers for work in the Arctic and what a guy to sit and talk to. I met him back in the early 60s.
Neil Bergt who went on to form up Mark Air and ran Western Airlines (The Only Way to Fly) for a period of time. Very well known wife, Laura, in her own right. Her beautiful and expensive parkas were well known all over the world and she was very active in local politics.
Jim and Dottie McGlofflin of Interior Airways who went on to become Alaska International Air (AIA) flying among others, a fleet of C-130s, the backbone of the cargo movement into Prudhoe Bay in the early 70s. Jim loaned me his office one night so some state troopers and company employees could pull a stakeout trying to catch one of my employees stealing. Maybe a more complete story about that later.
Tony Schultz went on to fly for Wien and was noted for always having a pocket full of candy for the kids at airports he landed at all over Alaska. He did not know what a frown was and believed that a smile could never be kept, only given away and he really practiced that idea.
I learned a lot from him about how to treat others.
Red Severance, cat train foreman. If you had to move a load of cargo or a C-46 engine into a frozen lake to repower a bird that went through the ice with one gear, all of which was across the arctic in the winter at 40 to 50 below zero in a blizzard with a Cat pulling sleds, Red was the man to set it up and run it. I met Red in 1962 also.
Wien received the air support contract to replace Interior around 1960 and I started working at the Point Barrow Airport in 1962 for Vinnell Corp who replaced PS&D as the contractor managing the support facility.
It is said by some that at one point at the support facility at Point Barrow, a heavy equipment operator got drunk one night (could have been day since it was 24 hour night at that time of the year), took a D-8 Cat out on the ice on the Arctic Ocean whereupon it broke through. Thanks to an emergency door on top of the cab for just such a situation, he was able to climb out before it sank.
Lost and found: Lost, one D-8 Cat with rounded dozer, S/N XXXXXXX If found, please contact XXXXXX. This did not appear in any newspaper though.
Since part of my work when I first got to the site was working in a warehouse, I got interested and suspect by now, many may have seen I like to dig into things. After all, I was able to go back to 1550 in my family tree and found every generation with lots of personal information without ever leaving the computer. Hard to do when the last name spelling changed four times which no one in the US knew about before.
I finally found a work order from about the same time period with an unbelievable amount of parts charged to it. One part which really caught my eye was a special order for a complete swing arm which is the solid steel support between the main frame and track system on the D-8 Cat. These never break or ware out of course. I noticed the S/N on the paperwork was the same as the one that I heard went missing in the Arctic Ocean. I finally found one guy, the warehouse supervisor that I worked for, that told me about what went on. Cost me a case of beer though to get him loosed up enough to talk about it. He was the person that gave me 3 days off from work so I could fly to Fairbanks and apply for a position with Wien and if I didn't make it, I still had my job at Point Barrow and wished me luck when I left.
I was told that one of the guys on the list of names I referred to above made arrangements to completely build a D-8 Cat from new parts, one part at a time. He even found a way to put the original serial number on the machine. No one ever caught on since it was nothing unusual to see a Cat completely torn down in the maintenance shop. It took almost a year to build it but it was completed by the next inventory. Should that have happened, it would sure been interesting to have watched it. Sorry, had to make that comment you know.
Following are links to a very well written history of that operation. They are very accurate and needless to say, worth reading for those that are interested in the Arctic of North America. Larry is a great researcher of facts and a great writer.
http://www.lswilson.ca/dewhist-a.htm
Although linked to Larry Wilson, the article from which this information comes from was written by Lynden T (Bucky) Harris and hosted by Larry.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lswilson.ca/powm-lp.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.lswilson.ca/powm.htm&h=321&w=573&sz=24&t
bnid=QGu46YRxigAJ:&tbnh=73&tbnw=130&start=2&prev=/images%3Fq%3DPOW%2BMain%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DU TF-8
(copy and paste the above link)
For my good friends from Canada, here is a link for the information across Canada as written by Larry Wilson also.
http://www.lswilson.ca/dewline.htm
What is interesting to me is that I knew all of those individuals listed in the group of officials at the official acceptance ceremony and worked with some of them. Many from Alaska will recognize some of the names.
Jim Dalton. The haul road to Prudhoe Bay from Fairbanks is named after him. He was one of the most noted engineers for work in the Arctic and what a guy to sit and talk to. I met him back in the early 60s.
Neil Bergt who went on to form up Mark Air and ran Western Airlines (The Only Way to Fly) for a period of time. Very well known wife, Laura, in her own right. Her beautiful and expensive parkas were well known all over the world and she was very active in local politics.
Jim and Dottie McGlofflin of Interior Airways who went on to become Alaska International Air (AIA) flying among others, a fleet of C-130s, the backbone of the cargo movement into Prudhoe Bay in the early 70s. Jim loaned me his office one night so some state troopers and company employees could pull a stakeout trying to catch one of my employees stealing. Maybe a more complete story about that later.
Tony Schultz went on to fly for Wien and was noted for always having a pocket full of candy for the kids at airports he landed at all over Alaska. He did not know what a frown was and believed that a smile could never be kept, only given away and he really practiced that idea.
I learned a lot from him about how to treat others.
Red Severance, cat train foreman. If you had to move a load of cargo or a C-46 engine into a frozen lake to repower a bird that went through the ice with one gear, all of which was across the arctic in the winter at 40 to 50 below zero in a blizzard with a Cat pulling sleds, Red was the man to set it up and run it. I met Red in 1962 also.
Wien received the air support contract to replace Interior around 1960 and I started working at the Point Barrow Airport in 1962 for Vinnell Corp who replaced PS&D as the contractor managing the support facility.
It is said by some that at one point at the support facility at Point Barrow, a heavy equipment operator got drunk one night (could have been day since it was 24 hour night at that time of the year), took a D-8 Cat out on the ice on the Arctic Ocean whereupon it broke through. Thanks to an emergency door on top of the cab for just such a situation, he was able to climb out before it sank.
Lost and found: Lost, one D-8 Cat with rounded dozer, S/N XXXXXXX If found, please contact XXXXXX. This did not appear in any newspaper though.
Since part of my work when I first got to the site was working in a warehouse, I got interested and suspect by now, many may have seen I like to dig into things. After all, I was able to go back to 1550 in my family tree and found every generation with lots of personal information without ever leaving the computer. Hard to do when the last name spelling changed four times which no one in the US knew about before.
I finally found a work order from about the same time period with an unbelievable amount of parts charged to it. One part which really caught my eye was a special order for a complete swing arm which is the solid steel support between the main frame and track system on the D-8 Cat. These never break or ware out of course. I noticed the S/N on the paperwork was the same as the one that I heard went missing in the Arctic Ocean. I finally found one guy, the warehouse supervisor that I worked for, that told me about what went on. Cost me a case of beer though to get him loosed up enough to talk about it. He was the person that gave me 3 days off from work so I could fly to Fairbanks and apply for a position with Wien and if I didn't make it, I still had my job at Point Barrow and wished me luck when I left.
I was told that one of the guys on the list of names I referred to above made arrangements to completely build a D-8 Cat from new parts, one part at a time. He even found a way to put the original serial number on the machine. No one ever caught on since it was nothing unusual to see a Cat completely torn down in the maintenance shop. It took almost a year to build it but it was completed by the next inventory. Should that have happened, it would sure been interesting to have watched it. Sorry, had to make that comment you know.